Andy Hayman

Richard Drake introduces us to Andy Hayman, another character in the phone hacking scandal. Hayman was in charge of the first phone hacking investigation. Their Muir Russell, so to speak.

Hayman seems to have been on friendly terms with Neil Wallis; he dined rather chummily with Wallis, then News of the World deputy editor, and Andy Coulson during his “investigation” [here using quotation marks as with the Muir Russell “investigation”] into phone hacking (April 2006). MP Chris Bryant observed reasonably enough:

“A judge sitting in a court case on the newspaper would not be dining with its editors and I don’t see why members of Scotland Yard should have done either.”

Richard Drake’s comment contains a short Wikipedia bio of Andy Hayman, a bio that contains another bizarre coincidence. Between 2002 and 2005, just prior to Hayman’s phone hacking “investigation” in 2006, Hayman was Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary :) rejoining the Met Police in 2006 to look after Counter Terrorism:

In 2002, Hayman was appointed Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary, a role in which he established the county’s Major Investigation Unit, responsible for providing a quick response to serious crime in Norfolk…

Rejoining the Met in February 2005, Hayman left Norfolk to become the Metropolitan Police Service’s Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations, a role which placed him in overall charge of counter-terrorism operations conducted by the now defunct Special Branch and the Anti-Terrorist Branch.

In the last thread I gave the date of the Andy Hayman investigation as 2007, based on the extremely interesting Wikipedia page News International phone hacking scandal. I’m sure Steve and the Independent article he quotes are right to date Hayman’s meal with Wallis and Coulson as April 2006. Has Wikipedia got the wrong year or is 2007 when the investigation ended? I’ll return to that little point at the end.

I should say that, like many Brits, I’d taken little interest in the phone hacking scandal from its earliest days in 2002, when Richard Thomas, then Information Commissioner, got the ball rolling with Operation Motorman. That changed absolutely on 4th July when Nick Davies revealed that 13-year-old Milly Dowler’s phone (voicemail) had been hacked by the News of the World after her disappearance in 2002, thus raising hopes that she was still alive when she had already been murdered.

The revulsion over this horror story has led to the uncovering of some of the dark underside of British culture, of which we are rightly ashamed. The links with East Anglia are totally unexpected to all of us – except for a few select readers I guess. (We’d sure love to have your story. Be sure that it will be told. Better to come clean now rather than later.)

Back to Wikipedia. I found it interesting that there was only one reference to Hayman in such a long page, perhaps with the wrong date for his investigation. I didn’t try to add or amend anything but there was one edit I made earlier today: I made “Andy Hayman” a link to his page. Which has the interesting detail of his stint in Norfolk. I may I suppose have read too much into the fact that this link was not already there. But it seemed a rather nice symbolic act to provide it.

Honestly, this whole cozy British police – public relations – government revolving door of corrupted process, collusion, coverups, and conflicting interests is almost like a conspiracy theorist’s dream of a secret cabal of controlling elites.

Sort of like sending Kim Philby to Canada to debrief the defecting clerk, Igor Gouzenko. Philby’s “investigation” wasn’t very thorough either. Even after Philby had been identified as a Russian spy, he wasn’t arrested until many years later when an American who had associated with Philby (Michael Straight) was vetted for a job in the Kennedy administration. And even then Anthony Blunt, another spy, remained protected for another 20 years or so as the Queen’s art curator.

You’re correct about Hollis. There was a Philby connection that emerged in 2003 – this is what I was recalling:

The files released today to the National Archives in London showed that Philby was entrusted by SIS chief Stewart Menzies with the task of drawing up an assessment of the implications of Gouzenko’s disclosures for the British armed forces’ Directors of Intelligence. Philby circulated a draft copy of his paper to MI5, the domestic security agency, suggesting that it might need “tidying up”.

But it received a cool response from senior MI5 officer Roger Hollis who, in a pointed memorandum drew attention to a series of “small inaccuracies”.
“Perhaps you hedged on this, so as to avoid giving the Directors of Intelligence too much detailed information,” he said.

There is no suggestion from the file that Hollis – who went on to become director-general of MI5 – suspected Philby of passing misinformation.

Indeed, he appeared to be more concerned that Philby was encroaching on his territory as Canada – regarded in London as a self-governing dominion within the British empire – was supposed to be MI5’s responsibility.

“I feel that the question of circulating the document from your office to the Directors of Intelligence is a matter of some embarrassment,” he wrote.

“The case took place in Canada and here the security rests on our office and not yours.”
Years later, in exile in Moscow after having been unmasked as a KGB agent, Philby admitted that Gouzenko’s defection with dozens of secret documents stuffed up his shirt had been a huge setback for the Soviets but said there had been little he could do.

“It was a disaster for the KGB and there was no way I could help,” he told journalist and author Phillip Knightley.

“The Mounties had Gouzenko so well protected that it was impossible for the Russians to do anything about him, bump him off or anything like that,” he said, using the colloquial name for the RCMP, Canada’s national police force.

KV 2/1421 – 1423 seem to be the relevant files released in 2003 and are available at Kew Gardens. KV 2/1421 includes correspondence between Roger Hollis at MI5 and Kim Philby at MI6 (including Philby’s signature) from February 1946 where Philby is seeking Hollis’ comments on a draft (not on the file) he has prepared about the case. Though most of the files refer to Hollis’s interviews with Gouzenko (for example in KV 2/1423 there is reference to a meeting Hollis had with him on 21 November 1945), none contains a report or note of the actual interviews.

I think that I’ve mentioned previously that my grandfather McRuer presided over four of the post-war spy trials in Canada. Some years later when American senators wanted to depose Gouzenko, he presided over the deposition by the senators and their staff and was credited with keeping it formal and non-circus.

The problem with any “team” or “secret society” is that it makes cover-ups easy. Each member vouches for the other members of the team, to discredit any witness that comes forward. This allows the “team” to advance their own interests, regardless of the wider interests of the community in which they operate.

This has not been limited to spy networks. GE Canada was taken over by a religious organization, that promoted their own members and held back non-members. 20% of all salaries were donated to the church as tithes, and wages raised accordingly. If you failed to promote and raise the wages of a fellow church member, you were hurting the church. This persisted for 20+ years until discovered and GE Canada was shut down as a result.

It is not hard to imagine that a similar same technique has been used time and time again by groups within companies and other organizations to take control from within to promote their own interests.

Climate Science is simply following a similar strategy. Those that are members of the “team” are actively promoted and defended by the team. Praise is lavishly heaped on any science that the release. Those that are not members of the team are ostracized and heavily criticized for any science they release.

This technique is nothing new. Nor is the harm that ultimately results. The reason being that the “Team” praises its members not for their merits, but rather for their membership. This allows shoddy and faulty work to slip through and be presented as though it was high quality work. Over time this leads to a corruption of the organizations involved, until their results can no longer be trusted to be accurate.

Not that I disbelieve you, but assuming that “GE Canada” = “General Electric Canada”, my family had a very dear friend (who passed away a few years ago) who, prior to retirement, worked for GE – and was quite active at his local church. So I’d like to be able to fwd this info.

Interestingly, on the CoI front, my father (who for a time worked for Westinghouse) was required to (and did) disclose any and all contacts he had with this family friend.

And, on a more humourous (but somewhat related) note … back in the days when computers made their debut in the industrial workplace, I recall my father telling the story of a visit to our friend’s office. Our friend was showing off his computer; but some programmer had arranged things in such a way that regardless of what our friend did, all that displayed on his monitor was “Back to work xxxxx, back to work xxxxx” :-)

Honestly, this whole cozy British police – public relations – government revolving door of corrupted process, collusion, coverups, and conflicting interests is almost like a conspiracy theorist’s dream of a secret cabal of controlling elites.

And yet it’s not as bad living in London Town and disagreeing with the official line as it was in Moscow in the days of Comrade Lysenko and his pal Jo Stalin, at a time Philby and co were doing all they could to help from outside. Put another way, we have a fighting chance, just as we did despite all the disastrous mistakes of the “old boy network” in bygone eras.

If there’s one article I’d recommend reading to get a balanced view of this crisis it would be John Harris on 18 July, entitled “How the phone-hacking scandal unmasked the British power elite”. This in particular I appreciated and agreed with, coming from a Guardian writer:

When he decisively began to exercise his grip on British politics in the 1980s, Murdoch was an intimate of Margaret Thatcher, who cleared the way for his move into British television, though to claim that she was under his spell was deeply misplaced.

Outstanding leadership means never coming under the spell of such a person, how dynamic and useful they may be to your tactical plans. We need more of the same. Never rule out what it can achieve.

One of the London sketchwriters made the point that Hayman’s mock outrage was so bad that when Hollywood comes to make the movie the actor assigned to play him will be ruined for life – if he acts Hayman authentically, the amount of ham will consign his career to oblivion!

It appears that British officials are selected exclusively for blackmail potential these days. (Similar to the system employed at the UN). The only thing currently lacking is a public school indiscretion – mind you, Acton has been out of the picture for a few days.

This thought has been strongly in mind about Wallis. What if the person ‘recruiting’ him for UEA knew some of the darker parts of his past, and that this would guarantee he wouldn’t step out of line? That’s the hunch I’ve had.

Indeed the mind positively boggles! Ever since I saw Richard’s comment re Hayman, this Joni Mitchell chorus just keeps replaying like a stuck record in my head:

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

The big story in this ‘hacking’ business is, and will become more prominent, the close relationship between NoTW and the Met Police; from the top ranks having lunch meetings and spa treatments, down to lower ranks accepting 5 figure sums of money from NoTW. Any officer close to those directly involved will be very worried. Most of the print media are drilling down on the political aspects but the policing aspect is bubbling away under the surface. It may eventually explain why the UEA email investigation is somewhat stalled, resting, dead or gone to the filing cabinet marked ‘Pending’.

The problem is – of course – once the corruption reaches a certain level, a cozy circular firing squad has been formed. The journalists know that there have been occasions when they have avoided some tedious work by asking for a reverse ping, and the police know that the journalists could turn them in at any point, and the politicians – like to be supported by the papers, and have their speeding tickets torn up. Far easier to go along than create waves. Basically the same situation set itself up in climatology, the climatologists, politicians, and journalists turning a blind eye to each other’s dishonesty and occasionally helping out with an lenient inquiry or PR job.

You mean that “the UEA email investigation is somewhat stalled” now, I take it, and the reasons (some kind of police corruption) will emerge later. If so, I tend to agree with all.

The single most important question about the police investigation is why it was organised under Protective Services, which is responsible for Counter Terrorism. For DCI Irwin to introduce himself to Steve as a Counter Terrorism Intelligence Officer and give the impression that those who had criticised CRU in any way (or even sent a FoI request) were being considered the miscreants (ie terrorists) would be a joke if it wasn’t so serious. A disgraceful abuse of police power. We need answers on that and fast. It’s remarkable how Wallis has swung the spotlight back on these matters.

“The files from Operation Motorman, which was conducted by the Information Commissioner’s Office in 2003, have been requested by the police conducting the current investigation.

The scale of the dubious news gathering practices is evident from the earlier inquiry, which revealed that 4,000 requests from 300 journalists and 31 publications for confidential information were made to a private investigator.

Many of the cases indicated use of illegal practices, according to a BBC report.

The investigation found the Daily Mail had made the most requests, followed by the Sunday People and the Daily Mirror.”

Also News of the World also did not select or pay its own “judge” like UEA officially.

it’s kind of amusing to picture a Muir Russell-style “independent” investigation of NOTW phone hacking. Everything run out of Rebekah Brooks’ office. First they get a hopeless front guy, who doesn’t even go to the interviews with Glenn Mulcaire. Then get an 18-year former NOTW employee currently working as an editor at another tabloid to take charge. It’s eerily familiar.

Or an Oxburgh style investigation. Everyone worried about Neil Wallis’ frail health. Wrap it in up 2 days without talking to victims.

Or a Penn State style investigation. They would report that the circulation figures had gone up under Wallis’ editorship so how could there be anything wrong?

Or a NOAA style investigation. They would report that News Corp stated that they paid bribes but the police stated that they didn’t received bribes. Therefor the investigators are unable to resolve the conflicting statements. But it doesn’t matter anyway because the policemen involved were in a different division at the time.

Cameron defends Coulson. “Of course I knew about that resignation before offering him a job, but I believe you should give people a second chance,” Cameron says.

Paul Stephenson, Metropolitan Police Commissioner at the time, starts an investigation of the News of the World and the Sun, another News Corp. publication. Assistant Commissioner John Yates is assigned to the inquiry.

Steve: My comment to which you are replying had nothing to do with the snipped allegations. The comment had nothing to do with Jones and read:

it’s kind of amusing to picture a Muir Russell-style “independent” investigation of NOTW phone hacking. Everything run out of Rebekah Brooks’ office. First they get a hopeless front guy, who doesn’t even go to the interviews with Glenn Mulcaire. Then get an 18-year former NOTW employee currently working as an editor at another tabloid to take charge. It’s eerily familiar.

Or an Oxburgh style investigation. Everyone worried about Neil Wallis’ frail health. Wrap it in up 2 days without talking to victims.

Or a Penn State style investigation. They would report that the circulation figures had gone up under Wallis’ editorship so how could there be anything wrong?

I am not online overnight and responses to your comment are off-topic and have been deleted as well.

I’m sorry if this comment goes over the line, but given the unrelenting machine-gun slandering of our host by the likes of Jones et al for years, sometimes you need to point out the obvious and skip diplomacy.

Somewhat O/T but, IMHO, definitely related … It seems that Wallis was … hmmm … not home alone. Another note (pun intended) from the Music World disclosures vis a vis UEA/CRU came from a Sam Bowen who (unlike Wallis) is still listed (at least as of the time of my posting this comment) in the OO stellar stable of people.

Well found. This tells us OO’s assigment for UEA definitely ran into 2010 – something I was assuming because of the ‘coached’ nature of the Phil Jones interview by the Sunday Times printed on 7th February but that I don’t think we knew for certain.

Follow the money. Bishop Hill obtained the general ledger. There were no payments to OP listed and a one time relatively small payment to another PR firm. Where’s the money coming from? The minimum retainer for a firm like OO would be $20k per month. Why are these payments not on the general ledger?

CRU/UEA, to the best of my recollection, has not been in the habit of going above and beyond the call of duty when responding to FOI requests! I could be wrong (it has been known to happen!), but
I believe that the GL entries disclosed to Bishop Hill were limited to those which pertained to that which he had specifically mentioned in his request.

IMHO, it would not be unreasonable to assume that any contract(s) with and payment(s) to OO would be more likely to show up on the books of UEA’s “Communications Office“:

The Communications Office is a service for the media and for our University colleagues who wish to publicise their work or produce their own publications. […] We are responsible for media relations, internal communications and official university publications.

Lord Justice Leveson, the judge in charge of the phone hacking inquiry, went to two parties in the past year at the London home of Matthew Freud, a PR executive married to Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of Rupert Murdoch widely tipped to be her father’s successor.

But questions were also being asked about the decision to appoint Lord Justice Leveson to lead the hacking inquiry after The Standard revealed that he has had dealings with Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law, Matthew Freud.

A spokesman for the judge said he met the boss of Freud Communications “by chance” at a dinner in February last year.

Mr Freud then offered to help the Sentencing Council on how to promote public confidence in the criminal justice system.

“To that end, in his capacity as Chairman of the Sentencing Council, and with the knowledge of the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Justice Leveson attended two large evening events at Mr Freud’s London home: these were on 29 July 2010 and 25 January 2011,” the spokesman added.

Prior to his appointment to the inquiry, Lord Justice Leveson told the Government about the links.

Downing Street said Lord Leveson had been appointed on the recommendation of the Lord Chief Justice “in line with the procedure of the Inquiries Act 2005.” He was the only proposed candidate.

“He has been entirely open about attending these events,” a spokesman added.

A spokeswoman for Freud Communications declined to comment saying they were private events.

I wouldn’t be too concerned about this. This was before Judge Leveson was appointed and Elisabeth Murdoch, Matthew Freud’s wife, isn’t an executive of News International. It’s quite different from Andy Hayman fraternising with NOTW people when he and they knew he was in the middle of investigating them.

I’m having a very difficult time comprehending what is going on here, or was going on. It looks like repertory theater. Are there really so few people over there who can do these things that the same ones are called and recalled for every “play?” If so, why?

One might suppose that if you always get the same cast, the producer might be the same, or the author. But that also seems difficult to see.

Or is it really the NOTW that drove everything such that any event capable of being blown up into a good scandal would have the cast populated with “trusted” players sure to “develop” titillating sequences?

Consider the relevant provisions of RIPA and its definition of interception. Section 2(2) of RIPA states that “….a person intercepts a communication in the course of its transmission by means of a telecommunication system if, and only if … (he makes) …some or all of the contents of the communication available, while being transmitted, to a person other than the sender or intended recipient of the communication”. Section 2(4) states that an “interception of a communication” has also to be “in the course of its transmission” by any public or private telecommunications system (my emphasis).

I had not appreciated the significance of “in the course of its transmission” or “while being transmitted” until now – but John Yates’ testimony has put an end to that. What Mr Yates appears to be telling the Home Affairs Committee is that the MPS legal advice states that once the lawful recipients have read or listened to their Inbox messages, there can be no interception in connection with those messages. The RIPA offence falls away because each read message “has been transmitted” rather than “is being transmitted”.

I’m still inclined to suspect that Mr Wallis and OO were engaged by UEA, or someone on behalf of UEA, for something more ‘active’ than just PR spin. Perhaps someone thought it might be helpful to spelunk the voicemail of some of the players to try to figure out who knew what about the email release and when.

If this were the case, it would mean that someone close to UEA or the Norfolk Constabulary would have had to know of Mr Wallis and of his ‘specialty’ and be in a position to engage his firm or recommend him to someone who would.

Now we hear of Mr Hayman, who could well have been in the right places at the right times to make those connections.

There is ample evidence that Phil Jones was distraught. People who are embarrassed in public often are. The world can be a tough place. I had considerable sympathy for Jones at the time and, had he been totally disowned by the climate community, I would have offered to co-author a paper on proxy reconstructions with him. I thought about this at the time. I may have mentioned this idea in an interview at the time, but it was something that I thought about. However, the climate community seems to now regard Jones as a bit of a hero for what anyone outside the “community” regards as substandard conduct, so the issue has become moot.

However, being distraught does not insulate someone from investigations if authorities have cause to carry out investigations.

No one would say that News of the World shouldn’t be investigated because Rupert was looking old and frail. Like Phil Jones, I’m sure that Neil Wallis will seek support from his family. There’s nothing wrong with this; it’s what people should do. I too draw energy from my grandchildren and I totally sympathize with Phil Jones on this point.

No one would say that News of the World shouldn’t be investigated because Rupert was looking old and frail. Like Phil Jones, I’m sure that Neil Wallis will seek support from his family. There’s nothing wrong with this; it’s what people should do. I too draw energy from my grandchildren and I totally sympathize with Phil Jones on this point.

I have no problem with the reference to his grandchild per se. Anyone who has genuinely wrestled with suicide and made the right choice has done so partly because of such factors – because of the grief one would cause to the innocent, like a five-year-old granddaughter, by making the wrong choice.

However, like Charles de Moderater, I have grave reservations about the public sharing of such thoughts. They are for close friends and family only. Especially in such circumstances.